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So Phae Phae is leveling a second Druid. For a class as versatile as ours, this happens a lot. Take, for instance, my friend Lardbutt on Lightbringer: he leveled a second Druid as Alliance both to try out the Alliance and to try out…Balance. I find it odd that we do that. I’ve even met players that have one Druid of each spec. I suppose that could be an indictment of the supposed versatility our class enjoys, but I think there’s more at work here, something a bit more…pragmatic.
See, I think that many of us manage impressive primary roles with our mains, those Druids whose spec is most familiar to us and in which we’ve invested so much time, loot, and interest. Additionally, our guilds often rely on us to continue with what we’ve made our main focus.
Phae Phae is one of our best healers. As such, there is vested interest in her remaining Restoration. When she logs on, we all know what to expect with her. The same goes for me: when I log on, people know I’m going to be able to tank for them. Additionally, the dearth of roles seems to have fallen from healers to tanks over the last year or more (ironic given that Druids and Paladins are MUCH better tanks than they used to be, thus our tanking pool includes far more people than it once did), meaning that though i wanted to try Restoration desperately the last few months, I’ve not had the opportunity to do so…I’m needed doing what I do.
You’re probably thinking, "Don’t be a dumbass, go do dailies. Spend 50 gold per respec. Collect multiple sets." Well that’s great in theory, but for those of us that really focus on our primary role, there’s often some factor locking us in, even if it’s just peer pressure or guild expectations. Alts can be a way to break away from that and give something else a shot. Besides, there’s little like leveling a spec to help show you the ins and outs of it. I won’t whine about playtime. Or did I do just that? Ah well.
After all that incoherent rambling, I bet you expect this post to go somewhere, right? Right? Well, I suppose I owe you that at least. Phaelia has asked what talents she should be taking and in what order and making a general pest of herself. Thus, here’s a little leveling talent primer that’s certainly open to discussion.
We all know we get our first point at 10. Like most other classes your initial expenditures will feel underwhelming but are still crucial to your progression.
| Talent | Total | Level | Notes | |
|
5
|
Ferocity Reduces the cost of your Maul, Swipe, Claw, Rake and Mangle abilities by 5 Rage or Energy. |
5/5 | 10-14 | Feral Aggression may appear to be a nice damage reduction tool but to be honest, it scales like crap and the benefit of this talent for both feral forms cannot be understated. Without Rage or Energy, you’re not much more threatening than a soggy roll of paper towels. |
|
3
|
Feral Instinct
Increases threat caused in Bear and Dire Bear Form by 15% and reduces the chance enemies have to detect you while Prowling. |
3/3 | 15-17 | So you’ve had Bear Form for a few levels and you’re realizing that the armor it affords is more like a nice shellac than actual protection, given the way your damage falls like an anemic blue-hair when you shift. This may tempt you to invest in Thick Hide. This is not a bad idea. However, Feral Instinct gives you the benefit of inreased stealth, something you’ll enjoy immensely once you get Cat Form. Additionally, if you intend to tank at anypoint, the added threat isn’t something you can afford to pass up. At these levels, I’ll go out on a limb and say that threat is far more important than durability as nothing hits all that hard yet. Still, feel free to swap FI with TH at any point in this guide. It’s not a deal-breaker either way and if you spend more time solo and in bear than not, TH might serve you better. I happen to find more value in the increased stealth for soloing, however. |
|
2
|
Thick Hide Increases your Armor contribution from items by 7%. |
2/3 | 18-19 | Okay, now you invest in Thick Hide. At this point it’s just a point dump, but if you intend to spend any time in Bear you will eventually appreciate having this talent. |
|
2
|
Feral Swiftness Increases your movement speed by 30% while outdoors in Cat Form and increases your chance to dodge while in Cat Form, Bear Form and Dire Bear Form by 4%. |
2/2 | 20-21 | Here’s what you’ve been building toward for since you started spending talent points. While the increased movement rate is in itself nearly enough to justify this talent, you also get 4% dodge in all feral forms. Increased survivability and the poor-Druid’s travel form is really hard to ignore. you get Cat Form here as well and suddenly you’re using the talents you’ve been buying. You’ll be spending a LOT of time in Cat Form from here on out. |
|
5
|
Furor Gives you 100% chance to gain 10 Rage when you shapeshift into Bear and Dire Bear Form or 40 Energy when you shapeshift into Cat Form. |
5/5 | 22-26 | Phae Phae has discussed at length the merits of Mark of the Wild in its native and improved forms so I won’t go into that here. Rather, the 100% chance for Rage and Energy on a shift is what we’re here for. Rage and Energy are your lifelines in feral forms and you cannot afford to not take this talent. |
|
5
|
Naturalist Reduces the cast time of your Healing Touch spell by 0.5 sec and increases the damage you deal with physical attacks in all forms by 10%. |
5/5 | 27-31 | The first time I recommended this talent to someone, I got an earful about how they were Feral and had no intention of healing. After I got a word in edgewise and showed them the damage increase that’s part of this talent, there was silence and a visit to the trainer to respec. 10% cannot be scoffed at. |
|
1
|
Omen of Clarity Imbues the Druid with natural energy. Each of the Druid’s melee attacks has a chance of causing the caster to enter a Clearcasting state. The Clearcasting state reduces the Mana, Rage or Energy cost of your next damage or healing spell or offensive ability by 100%. Lasts 30 min. |
1/1 | 32 | This is what we really came to Resto for. This one talent arguably does more for your overall dps than any other talent you’ll take. Melee clear-casting for your special abilities. |
|
3
|
Sharpened Claws Increases your critical strike chance while in Bear, Dire Bear or Cat Form by 6%. |
3/3 | 33-35 | 6% increase in Crit chance in forms. Eventually you’ll come to see how insanely high your crit chance will be as a Feral and this is really more of an enabler for other abilities than for the damage, though eventually it’s really nice for that, too. |
|
2
|
Primal Fury Gives you a 100% chance to gain an additional 5 Rage anytime you get a critical strike while in Bear and Dire Bear Form and your critical strikes from Cat Form abilities that add combo points have a 100% chance to add an additional combo point. |
2/2 | 36-37 | I take this over the alternative because it is once again a set of immediate returns that will give for the rest of your feral life. Rage in Bear and Combo Points in Cat are useful no matter your style. |
|
3
|
Predatory Strikes Increases your melee attack power in Cat, Bear, Dire Bear and Moonkin Forms by 150% of your level. |
3/3 | 38-40 | Far more impressive now than it will be ever again, this is nonetheless, a critical talent to take. Not only is the Attack Power a nice dps boost, but it unlocks Heart of the Wild for later. |
|
2
|
Savage Fury Increases the damage caused by your Claw, Rake, and Mangle (Cat) abilities by 20%. |
2/2 | 41-42 | At this point, you’re still using Claw as your primary Cat Form attack with Rake being a bleed that’s still worth using. Another 10% damage buff that will transfer to Mangle? Yes, please. |
| So now we have 3 points to spend before we get to the meat. There’s more wiggle room here than I’ll be letting on, but this is a guide so prepare yourselves for more guidage. | ||||
|
1
|
Thick Hide Increases your Armor contribution from items by 10%. |
3/3 | 43 | Finish Thick Hide. You have Dire Bear Form now, and the armor contribution is much more valuable should you intend to be tanking at any point. |
|
1
|
Feral Charge Causes you to charge an enemy, immobilizing and interrupting any spell being cast for 4 sec. |
1/1 | 44 | I use this as a tank quite frequently, and I think a lot of Warriors would kill to not have to stance-dance to access Intercept, making this ability a no-brainer if you like tanking or just making like Phae’s Rocket-Bear. It can be a useful — if situational — interrupt too if you can time it right. |
|
1
|
Faerie Fire (Feral) Decrease the armor of the target by 610 for 40 sec. While affected, the target cannot stealth or turn invisible. |
1/1 | 45 | Useful for pulling, some rage-free threat, and the armor reduction it carries. Some make do without this, but I find that when I have a full rage bar and am moving to the next pull, this ability saves me a lot of lost Rage. |
|
5
|
Heart of the Wild Increases your Intellect by 20%. In addition, while in Bear or Dire Bear Form your Stamina is increased by 20% and while in Cat Form your attack power is increased by 10%. |
5/5 | 46-50 | 20% more Intellect for that m4d f3r4l h33lin’, 20% more Stamina for Dire Bear Form, and 10% more AP for Cat. Can you, in good conscience, go Feral without this? I think not. |
|
1
|
Leader of the Pack While in Cat, Bear or Dire Bear Form, the Leader of the Pack increases ranged and melee critical chance of all party members within 45 yards by 5%. |
1/1 | 51 | Yes, I’m suggesting this over Survival of the Fittest for now. Why? You’re leveling and your forays into instances are likely to be few and far between. Your PvP is pretty limited here as well, so it’s unlikely that you’ll need SotF yet. LotP, however, increases that ever-important Crit chance you’ve been building. Add in that it’s party-wide and suddenly you’re the Belle of the Ball. |
|
2
|
Improved Leader of the Pack Increases the effect of all healing spells by 10%. |
2/2 | 52-53 | Your Leader of the Pack ability also causes affected targets to have a 100% chance to heal themselves for 4% of their total health when they critically hit with a melee or ranged attack. The healing effect cannot occur more than once every 6 sec. |
|
3
|
Survival of the Fittest Increases all attributes by 3% and reduces the chance you’ll be critically hit by melee attacks by 3%. |
3/3 | 54-56 | Critical (Ha!) for tanking and incredibly useful generally. 3% increase to all your stats. That can be huge depending on how heavily you’ve stacked things. -3% chance to be critted is why you’ll take this as a tank. It means you only need 415 Defense or more practically a further 2.6% reduction to your chance to be critted. I cannot stress this talent enough, especially now that you’re at a level where enemies are becoming dangerous. |
|
4
|
Predatory Instincts While in Cat Form, Bear Form, or Dire Bear Form, increases your damage from melee critical strikes by 8% and your chance to avoid area effect attacks by 12%. |
4/5 | 57-60 | We take this primarily for the critical damage boost. The AoE resistance is nice, and was once crucial. Now, it’s a convenient damage-boosting method of getting to… |
|
1
|
Mangle Mangle the target, inflicting damage and causing the target to take additional damage from bleed effects for 12 sec. This ability can be used in Cat Form or Dire Bear Form. |
1/1 | 61 |
Mangle will now replace Claw. Take Claw off your bar. Mangle has the same energy cost and does more damage in addition to boosting the damage from bleeds, the damage type that is crucial to your raid performance. You could be tempted to leave Claw on because it has not the 6 second cooldown of Mangle, but you would be making a mistake. Claw will use up rage better suited for Mangle and that cannot be allowed. Forget Claw. Put it in your underwear drawer and only take it out to thank it for getting you to level 61. Then quickly hide it lest anyone think you might click it. No clickie. Stop it! |
|
1
|
Predatory Instincts While in Cat Form, Bear Form, or Dire Bear Form, increases your damage from melee critical strikes by 10% and your chance to avoid area effect attacks by 15%. |
5/5 | 62 | By now you may have noticed how much our damage stems from two sources: Critical hits and bleeds. Finish this. |
|
2
|
Shredding Attacks Reduces the energy cost of your Shred ability by 18 and the rage cost of your Lacerate ability by 2. |
2/2 | 63-64 | In any group where you aren’t the tank, you’ll be scratching. When you do, Shred is far and away your best special ability, but it is very expensive. You’ll likely be using the following rotation: Mangle-Shred to 5 CP – Rip. Rinse and repeat. OOC helps, but you still want Shred to be as cheap as you can make it. Additionally, you’re only 2 levels away from Lacerate, one of your primary tanking tools. Cheaper on the Rage makes you a more efficient tank…and it’s a bleed. |
| ?/? | 65-70 | This range is purely discretionary. You’ve gotten the critical talents and now have to examine a few things. If you still rely heavily on Bash-Shift-Pot/Root/Heal you may want to invest in Brutal Impact. If you’re like me, Natural Shapeshifter is also a boon, given early Feral gear’s dearth of Intellect. Another juicy morsel is Intensity. Intensity allows mana regen while casting for those times when you have to strap on a dress and tend to the wounded. It also grants instant Rage on the use of Enrage. Primal Tenacity is probably the last one you’ll want to consider. It’s primarily tanking-focused and can help make up some distance with fearing mobs. It is unreliable though, like Gnomish engineers. | ||
So there you have it, a self-important list of things to pick up while questing as a Cat and instancing as a Bear. It isn’t the Dire Cat thing I mentioned last time. Sue me. I think better minds are at work on it already.
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My guild was doing a half PuG Sunwell trash farming spree a couple of weeks ago and we invited a druid who had a balance and feral druid. She’s like “oh, you need another feral? brb, let me switch”. I spent a good 10 minutes scratching my head.
Personally i don’t get it, but at least it’s better than the one person who had 2 rogues… I guess i could see the rationalization that people see you in a different light when your on that other druid, everyone sees me as ‘the tree’ though i do get many chances to respec and tank/boomkin it up. Maybe both of you should respec at the same time and surprise your guildys by switching up your roles. ^_^
For leveling feral it all depends really on when you start dipping into resto for Furor and OoC. Some ferals do it after they grab mangle, i did it a little earlier then that list describes. It’s ether get all those yummy resto/feral talents early, or get mngle early(er). My mind set was that the resto talents give so much utility and up your dps. Mangle just ups your dps, and you do get it allot later than you would the resto talents.
I tried re-specing my druid to play as boomkin for a weekend but 3 hours into it I had guildies saying they’d pay my respect cost so I could tank an instance. Totally understand how people ‘expect’ certain roles to be filled by certain druids.
Reminds me of the fury warrior I met yesterday who makes sure that people know he doesn’t even own a shield.
I recommend respeccing at 50 to go straight for Mangle. This quickened leveling on my druid tremendously. I’d then go back and grab Omen of clarity, and then get what you don’t have that Currant recommends.
I think i was rather lucky really as i got my druid (second char i made, although now my main) to 70 while my guild had mostly finished in kara but not enough people for 25 mans, so i could get my feral gear up, and after a time with no others wanting resto gear i started to get that aswell, so i ended up with ok gear for both specs, the only problem is most of my guildies know this so i end up respecing alot.
I have leveled three druids now, and I do a bit of respeccing through the levels. From 10-19, I play balance, and then I go feral, but respec at 50 for mangle. Here is my talent ordering, for those that have a bit extra money to toss at their baby druids!
Specs:
10 – 1/1 Nature’s grasp
11-14 4/5 Starlight Wrath
15-16 2/2 Improved Moonfire
17-18 2/2 Focused Starlight
19 5/5 Starlight Wrath
Respec
5/5 Ferocity
3/3 Thick Hide
2/2 Brutal Impact
20-21 2/2 Feral Swiftness
22/24 3/3 Sharpened Claws
25-26 2/2 Primal Fury
27-28 2/2 Shredding Attacks
29 1/1 Feral Charge
30-34 55 (resto) Furor
35-39 5/5 (resto)Natralist
40 1/1 (resto) Omen of Clarity
41-42 2/2 Savage Fury
43 1/1 Feral Faerie Fire
44-46 3/3 Predatory Strikes
47-49 3/5 Heart of the Wild
Respec
5/5 Ferocity
3/3 Thick Hide
2/2 Brutal Impact
2/2 Feral Swiftness
1/1 Feral Charge
3/3 Sharpened Claws
2/2 Primal Fury
2/2 Shredding Attacks
2/2 Savage Fury
1/1 Feral Faerie Fire
3/3 Predatory Strikes
5/5 Heart of the Wild
1/3 Survival of the Fittest
1/1 Leader of the Pack
2/2 Imp. Leader of the Pack
5/5 Predatory Instincts
1/1 Mangle
51-55 5/5 (resto) Furor
56-59 5/5 (resto)Natralist
60 1/1 (resto) Omen of Clarity
Just another option =)
As others have stated, I will as well. Respec to mangle at 50 as it will speed things up tremendously. I’m in the process of leveling my second druid (Alliance and PvP server as opposed to Horde and PvE) and I’m currently 16 with bear form talents. I’d personally suggest taking 2/3 Thick Hide before Feral Instinct, as you won’t be using the extra stealth before 20 or the extra threat unless you’re tanking VC before you get cat.
Other than those 2 things, everything looks fine. Quite a nice spec if I do say so myself.
Little note: Mangle (Cat) doesn’t have that 6 second cooldown like Mangle (Bear), so Claw can really be removed.
Another tip for those who are leveling a feral druid. I found that with Brutal Impact and Shredding attacks that I was able to Pounce, Mangle, and get a Shred off before the enemy ever got an attack. Sometimes, if you get a clearcast from OoC, you can even get a second shred in. I highly recommend this technique while soloing, as it brings down most mobs to 50% or less before they even get to hit you.
Props to Horns and Crythia. Totally stole my thunder ^.^
@Crythia: Yeah! I’m not the only one. Take thick hide as your last three talent points. It is worthless until you have lots of gear with “green” armor. Take Brutal Impact instead. It allows you (with a good energy bar addon) to pounce->shred–>shred–>shred (if ooc procs) before the mob even turns on you. This is great for those group[2] type quests. Or those that require you to kill Bob, but Bob has 2 guards with him the whole time. Pounce Bob, kill him ASAP, loot his head and Dash out ASAP leaving the guards wondering what just happened.
I consider the following talents key in leveling Feral (in level order):
Feral Instinct (prowl buff)
Brutal Impact (see above)
Feral Swiftness (faster outdoor movement)
Primal Fury at lvl 26 (free combo points)
FFF at lvl 30 (pulls in feral form)
Shredding Attacks at lvl 34 (even though it doesn’t help until you get pounce at lvl 36)
Leader of the Pack at lvl 40
Imp LotP at lvl 42
at this point you can decide if you want to pickup OoC or Mangle first. I took Mangle at lvl 50 and wasn’t all that impressed, at least not until I had quite a bit AP which didn’t occur until I had a good set of Outland gear. By then I had OoC at lvl 61. Flip a coin. I think OoC > Mangle while you are in the lvl 50-60 range. After that, you’ll have both so it doesn’t matter all that much. Just make sure at lvl 61 you have Mangle and OoC and the rest you leveling will be easier.
So, I’d have this build at lvl 61…
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0ZxGMcfroezwoVx0z
Note: Take a point out of PI if you want FC before lvl 62.
Furor is worthless while solo leveling except for those few quests that require you to use an item to summon the mob. But you have to take it to get to OoC so it doesn’t really matter. Ditto for Feral Charge (don’t bother tanking until you get to the Outlands). Though if you are on a PvP server, FC could have a purpose.
Good luck. Have fun.
Switching between specs is a pain in the neck for any selfrespecting hybrid. When I’m resto I am carrying the standard healing gear on my druid, a full PvP healing set in the bagpack as well as additional trinkets, resistance items, buff mats and misc. gear.
To, say, switch to feral, I will need to spend a good 15 minutes in the bank only exchaning my healing gear for cat dps, bear tank (avoid AND mitigation sets), resistance items and pvp stuff. And 15 minutes is an optimistic number, I know it took me 4 days once to find that single trinket in my bank.
And you’ll have to repeat that once you go back to another spec. And you have to store all that gear somewhere (with all 18 slot bags and all non-soulbound items on another character) I only had 5 slots open. Having a second druid that you can use to play a different spec extensively is great because you can concentrate on each role a lot more and save quite a bit of space
I tried to level my old pre-BC druid, but found it too painful as he was Alliance and I couldn’t stand it anymore. For the Horde!
//Ubi
One more thing I learned while leveling (many Feral gods will disagree with me on this)….
If you find yourself using bear while solo leveling (after you get cat form) you are doing something wrong. DPS is king while solo leveling. Bear’s DPS is so bad that the improved survivability (which is minimal while leveling since you’ll have crappy gear for bear anyway) does nothing for you except make your death slower. In the end you’ll still die. If you can’t handle that group[2] or group[3] in cat form, there is very little chance (with the same level and gear) you’ll be able to handle in in bear form. Espeically if there is more than one mob to deal with. Though now with “in form” potion usage you might be able to get away with it.
@ Horns
Good catch! When I was writing this I thought to myself, “I should go double-check the tooltip to make sure I’m not still operating on an old assumption. I read the cooldown and thought, “I know I’ve seen Mangle on cooldown, but I also know I spam it…huh.” I didn’t even catch that I was only reading the bear tooltip. O.o
Anyway,thanks for the catch!
@NotAnIssue
Furor is quite awesome to be honest – there’s less downtime when grinding a bunch of mobs (no need to wait for energy to regen).
And Bear Form is the king for group quests – with Demoralizing Roar up mobs are barely scratching you, Mangle still does a lot of damage and Improved Leader of the Pact helps regain a lot of lost HP, especially if you’re spamming Swipe on 2-3 mobs. Well, assuming you’re specced accordingly and required level.
If you do happen to pull 3 mobs, you will kill them in Bear, and most likely die in Cat.
Hornss last blog post..l2pvp: The Trinket
I have got a druid on Horde and Alliance. I like the feral talents but I am resto spec on both.
Ozebs last blog post..Druid Love
Thanks for this timely article. Lifelong resto druid here (even leveled as resto.. it was my first toon and didn’t know any better) and I’m now leveling another druid to lrn2play feral. My second druid is at level 18 now so this really helps. It’s somewhat embarrassing to be a really good druid healer but fail miserably at any of my other forms.
Very good guide for someone just starting out as a Feral.
To comment on the lack of tanks at 70, I think it has a lot to do with a few factors:
First, it is just plain easier to become “geared” enough for heroics/raiding as a healer than it is as a tank, in my opinion. Healing stats are relatively straightforward, and there is a lot of good healing gear to be found. If nothing else, you can use cloth to fill in the gaps, which you can’t do if you are trying to be a tank.
Second, less knowledge of game mechanics and specific encounters is required at entry level for a healer. Sure, it takes skill to heal, but your learning curve is relatively shallow. A tank has to have a really strong grasp of threat, managing mobs, positioning, and the basics of pulling and CC. An entry level tank has a steep learning curve, especially if they are just starting to try their hand at it at lvl 70 after leveling as a DPS prior to that. Add in a relatively obscure imaginary value like threat, which is almost totally irrelevant outside of groups and instances…you get the idea. Tanking often requires a lot of research, and many players aren’t that devoted.
Third, tanking and healing are both intimidating roles. The stress factor (and fun factor, in my opinion) ramp up a lot, but when you screw up, sometimes even a little, every one does a corpse run. Of the 2, healing seems a lot less stressful, because it often isn’t apparent to someone what all the healer is doing, unless a DPSer is watching the health bars attentively, which is a little unusual in my experience. Lets not forget that it is often expected that a tank will have group lead, have to mark the kill order on mobs, and have to decide who to invite or remove from the group. A tank is a group “daddy” in a lot of ways, and a lot of players aren’t ready to put on their daddy pants.
Finally, there is role competition. Healers have it too, no doubt, but have you ever seen how viciously some tanks fight over a raid tanking slot? I have seen many guilds actively refuse to recruit new tanks because 1 or 2 prima donnas were afraid of any competition coming in and taking “their” slot, to the point that they would threaten to leave themselves if any new tanks were recruited. Often, there is a lot of behind the scenes backstabbing and double-talk about the other players, attempting to sway other guildies about who should be the “MT”. Is it a poor way to behave? Yes, but it happens, and I think it serves in part to keep the tank population low at lvl 70.
Thanks Phae for writing about this… don’t know why I didn’t think about this myself.
I don’t have a problem with respeccing costs & managing multiple gear sets… it’s the being limited to two professions part that irks me. Bar none, Druids are the best herb gatherers and as one of my guild’s Elixer Masters, I’m very conflicted about dropping Herbalism to pickup Leatherworking, which is a very big deal for end game raiding… whether for the various Drums or the uber Resto Druid patterns that drop in SWP. I was thinking about having one my alts picking up Herbs to feed my Main’s habit, but leveling a 2nd Druid is obviously the way to go!
Thanks!
Flynx @ Bronzebeard
I’ve been seriously thinking of leveling up a feral druid to match my darling tree. I once spent about a month soon after I hit 70 in a mostly-feral spec, grinding out my reputations. It was incredibly fun. I collect off-spec gear, but every time I think about respecing for a few days between raids, somebody asks me if I’ll be available to heal something!
@Flynx – One of my closest (feral) druid friends just had his second feral druid hit 60 yesterday. His first is locked into leatherworking and alchemy, and he’s bored to tears gathering on his alts – all he wants to do is druid.
I have two druids but I don’t play the second one anymore. Oddly enough, I could have used him.
My first druid I leveled as feral. I tanked with him and had a good time doing it. Alas, the guild has plenty of tanks and few healers so I re-speced to resto and have been healing with him ever since. But I only have two sets of gear, tanking and healing.
So this past weekend a message pops up in guild chat, “Anyone want to go to reg. Manatombs?” I said I’d come heal (the BG queues were 23 min for AV). So I get invited and I am asked, “Do I have a casting or melee DPS set?” I reply, “Sorry, only tanking and healing sets.” And the response was, “I guess you’re healing then.” Which was probably a good thing. The healer that was coming was a 61 pally. I’ve got nothing against pallies but 61 is a little low for Manatombs.
The whole point is that my second druid is currently feral for leveling but I was planning to make him balance. If I had kept at it he would have been a good fit. Oh well. If he really wanted dps he could have asked me to bring my hunter. It all worked out. 1 death and zero wipes for the run.
My main druid (Kaebler) is a feral druid who’s been around for about 3.5 years now. I’ve played every possible spec on him, but feral has always felt “right”. For some reason, those times post-BC that I’ve specced resto on him to help out in that way, I found myself bumbling and messing up quite a bit (even though I raided pre-BC as resto only).
As a joke, I decided to level another druid, and try to level her as resto. The joke quickly turned serious as I realized that I enjoyed playing a druid way more than any of my other alts, and the next thing I know I have two 70 druids. One’s feral full-time and the other’s resto full-time.
I’d say the only downside to it, really, is if I’m tanking a raid and something resto drops, my toon that NEEDS that drop isn’t there to get it, and vice versa. But oh well, such is life.
I’ve been swapping specs twice a week to accommodate two different raids with two different groups. I’ve been going ToL for the 25-man content, and feral for Kara. But I’m pondering a spec that will let me stay on top of healing in 25-man content AND be able to bring decent caster dps to Kara. My weak link is the dps caster gear, but I’ve been slowly piecing stuff together with Kara drops. I have definitely pondered just rolling another druid altogether. It’s such an awesome class. Thanks for the food for thought!
@ Flynx @ Bronzebeard: I’m doing the same thing…dropping herbalism for leatherworking. It’s going to be hard…I will miss being able to swoop down to snag my weeds.